glitter in the air
by empathapathique
Summary: "The breath before the kiss, and the fear before the flames. Have you ever felt this way?" Love with grown-up clothes on. A real world AU.


**title: **glitter in the air

**author:** empath apathique

**summary:** "The breath before the kiss, and the fear before the flames. Have you ever felt this way?" Love with grown-up clothes on. A real world AU.

**notes:** Sensitive topic below. Not controversial, but definitely terribly _real_.

This is a universe I only have intentions on dabbling in. Each piece is meant to stand on its own as a look into their experience growing up. There are two to three more of these half-written, but I have no schedule for updates.

Title comes from the P!nk song of the same name. Listen, really.

* * *

She says, "I work out. I eat well."

He says, "Eating well's got nothing to do with it."

"It's got _everything _to do with it. When you're young, they say, 'be healthy, eat your vegetables.'"

"You don't eat vegetables. You eat cucumbers."

She waves his words away. "You're missing the _point_, Ichi-chan. The goddamn _point_."

Ichigo isn't missing the point at all. Not that Rukia cares. She's too used to the sound of her own voice. When Rukia talks, people don't just listen—they shut the hell up. Ichigo isn't just a person—he never has been, and she knows it. She also knows that he hates it when she calls him anything but his name, prefers her insults over the cutesy shit she'll throw around just to piss him off. Not that she cares about that, either.

This isn't the courtroom, but life is one big mind game with Rukia. She's frank as a motherfucker, but there's an underneath to it all—the look in her eye, that subtle, telling tilt of her chin. It's all another way to fuck with him. In public, it never fails to make _Ichigo_ look like the asshole—the guy who can't appreciate his girl, so small and in love it's a shame. They look at Ichigo, bright-haired and scowling and he's gotten those looks all his life. He knows what they think: what a fucking jerk.

But to call her out on it is to up the ante in her farce. She'll look at him, eyes blue and wide, slender fingers poised about her face. Her voice will take on that high, schoolgirl squawk—nails on a chalkboard, even after all that's occurred.

She'll say, _'Oh, but I love you so much!'_

And he'll feel like gagging and like shaking the shit out her—until her teeth clink and all. He'll feel kind of like kissing her, too, which is completely unfair. Because she's annoying and it's on fucking _purpose_, but when she smiles at him—haughty and triumphant, as playful as a little girl—she's so gorgeous that it _hurts_. He'll kiss her, call her an overwhelming bitch. Maybe she'll laugh. Maybe she'll kiss him, too.

And yet, sometimes the path of least resistance is the best course. To _not_ engage is engaging enough. All because Rukia's agitated doesn't mean Ichigohas to be, as well.

There's a certain amount of her bullshit Ichigo will allow. His girl is sick. It's been a rough couple of months.

They're in the bed, his back to the wall and her back to his chest. He's got a book in his hands, but mostly he's watching her. This has been building for an hour, at least. Rukia has moved from the bed to the couch to the bed once again, finally settling herself at his chest while she flipped absently through affidavits from the Muramasa trial. She isn't supposed to be working, but Ichigo knows better than to tell Rukia what she's supposed to do. He has bruises from such attempts dating back to the days when all this was new. He was disenchanted and fifteen, still high on his own importance, honestly believing she would do as he said.

He thinks of the dark-haired girl Ochi-sensei placed in the seat beside him so many years before. Rukia was pale and perfect and pretty fucking _weird, _if you asked Ichigo; with her antiquated speech patterns and blatant politesse that never failed to make him _sick_—even in those very first days. The dancer from Paris; she was an obsession for the entire goddamn school. Not that Ichigo cared about those sorts of things—or about _her_, really—but she was just so _short_. And what a way to meet the real girl: that look in her eyes, her knee to his shin. He said, 'you midget _bitch.'_ They've been inseparable ever since.

He thinks, _damn_. He hasn't been fifteen in fifteen years. More, really; in a few months, he's turning thirty-three.

But time lost its meaning with them long before. Probably when she first kicked him, held him with that look in her eyes, showed him who she truly was. Rukia still leaves bruises, but Ichigo has always understood, even if he couldn't quite grasp what it was that he got. Time has no meaning but between them there are years, a testament to it all.

He isn't missing the point, even beneath the everything she hasn't yet said. She doesn't have to say it. He knows what she means.

He watches as she looks down. He knows where she's looking: Ichigo can see the tops of her breasts through the neckline of her shirt—his shirt, once. He hasn't seen it since high school graduation, which means it's travelled the world with its current owner: a four-month stint with a dance company in New York; that crazy summer they backpacked across Europe; Harvard; the summer he spent with her in that dusty old flat in Cambridge, taking classes at one of the best universities in the world. Later, it was back to Karakura, of course. He thinks of the months they spent in hospital rooms just like this one, feels the material of the shirt, old and frayed beneath his hands.

Rukia gropes herself through the cloth, a rough, clinical touch. Ichigo frowns.

"Stop that," he says.

She leans away from him, head craned to look into his face. She's wearing a scarf on her head, tied like the woman on that stupid American magnet she keeps on the refrigerator. In his head, he calls it the chemo scarf, and he kind of thinks she calls it that, as well. He hasn't seen it in thirteen years, wonders if she pulled it from the part of her life labeled 'cancer,' just to see her through this second go. Still, the blunt cut of her hair dances against her jaw. There's that troublesome bang between her brows, painfully familiar in all the ways that make him ache for her. He kind of really fucking _loves_ this girl. Every part of her.

He tells her, "Don't touch them that way."

"Why?" She sounds every bit as spoilt as he teases her for, a petulant, demanding force. She says, "They're _mine."_

"They are not. They're mine." He pulls her hands from her breasts, settling his palms against her instead. His touch is light, all the gentleness she denied herself only moments before. Her right nipple hardens immediately. "You relinquished ownership."

She raises a dark brow, curious and annoyed all at once. "When?"

"Years ago. Your brother was not happy with the transaction. I told him to kindly _fuck off_—"

"_What _are you talking about?"

"You wore white, of course—"

Here, she huffs, an almost laugh as she falls back against him.

"You signed yourself over to me. So you see," he says, "they're mine. No arguing."

She snorts. Yeah, he thinks he's funny, too.

She won't let it rest, of course. "What is this 'signing away' business?"

"_Marriage_, you loser."

"What I agreed to, Kurosaki-sensei, was _half."_

"Well, fine—_Kurosaki_. Then they're mine half the time. Like now." For emphasis, he squeezes. He left nipple remains unresponsive. He doubts she even notices, and the reality of their situation sweeps through him once more.

She doesn't say anything, and he knows she's looking at his hands on her. He calls her a midget but she never looks smaller than when he's holding her. His hands, fingers to wrists, cover her completely, spanning the space from her sternum to the ticklish skin beneath her arms. He knows her strength—feels the muscle bonded to her bones, despite her diminutive form. His mother named him Ichigo; he has the will to protect inscribed on his heart. She has never asked him to fight her battles. She doesn't wanthim to, but she doesn't have to _ask_. His heart and hands and bones—they're hers.

But this is their second time. It's too much of the same: same cancer, same place, that same overwhelming _fear_, eating at him from within. He's helpless and he hates himself, because after the first time, he promised that he would protect her. He can wipe his ass with his medical degree, for all it fucking counts. He _understands_ and that's the biggest realization of them all; this is nothing he can save her from.

He doesn't realize that his hands have tightened against her until she touches him. She circles his left wrist as best as her short fingers allow, tugging his hand away from her boob. She disowns it even from his touch, hates herself, even if it's something she can't control.

He wants to tell her not to be this way. But he's angry, as well. For different reasons, but it doesn't matter because being angry isn't going to make anything go away.

She says, almost mournful, "My boobs are hardly a handful for a ten-year-old."

Ichigo raises a bright-colored brow. There's a lot in what she's said, and everything in what she has not: the 'and now…'and, of course, '_again.'_ He nuzzles her scarf-covered hair, pressing a kiss to her ear. He says, "You've been felt up by a ten-year-old?"

She swats him on the knee. "If either of us has a kiddie fetish, it's _you._"

"_What?"_

"I'm fully willing to acknowledge that I'm a petite bit of girl—"

"You're _short_."

She digs her elbow into his ribs. He shifts away from her, clutching his side. The line in her arm jostles, and she gasps in pain. "Gosh, Ichigo, you're such an asshole."

"And you're an abusive _bitch_."

They're glaring at each other but he's sorry, even if he doesn't say so. He pulls her back against him. The arm with the line lies flat against his thigh, and he rubs his fingers along the sensitive skin of her inner elbow, just above the catheter taped to her forearm.

Noisily, she exhales. They lapse into silence, and she begins picking at the tape with her nail. She says, "I hate this thing."

"I know."

She blinks up at him, her eyes wide and blue. "Take it out for me?"

The nurses will be pissed. He's not well-liked in oncology, probably because he's always up here giving Ishida shit, whenever time allows. But they're leaving tomorrow and he doesn't care about the nurses or what they'll tell his stupid cousin, anyway.

Still, he doesn't feel like moving.

"Later," he tells her.

"But I want to _walk,_" she says.

"_Later_." She frowns. "God, can't you just _sit _here with me?"

"I've been sitting all day."

He doesn't say anything. Instead, he takes her left hand in his. He threads their fingers together, hope she doesn't call him sentimental, or stupid. She looks at him for a moment before turning away once more. They sit in the silence, punctuated only by the blips of the monitors in the room.

She asks, "How was your day?"

"Short." He's been working half days since this began once more. Years ago, chemo lasted twelve weeks, left his girl so wasted he thought she would die from this purported cure. He knows better now but it also doesn't change a thing. In school, he barely made it through the rotations in oncology, and Ishida would look at him—like he really wanted to call him a big fat puss. Ishida didn't say anything, because that wasn't the sort of thing Ishida would say. But Ishida understood and that was enough to set Ichigo on edge. He kind of h

He likes the emergency room for the lack of specialization. It's all thinking on your feet, using everything you've learned in the ever changing situation, always always always saving lives.

He knows he can't save everyone. He can't. He knows this. But Ichigo prefers work with the world in his hands rather than the wait, the helplessness that never fails to bring him back to Rukia being sick.

They don't do half shifts down in Emergency but Ichigo doesn't rightly care. They can fire him—he'll fucking _quit_. And he kind of hates himself a little, for worrying about stupid shit like his job when Rukia's in the hospital battling the same sickness she beat thirteen years before; a sickness that took her sister, and seems to want another go.

The truth is, this kind of hit him over the head. She's supposed to be better; he shouldn't be thinking _not again, God, _ this is how it goes:

Two months ago, he has Rukia in bed, is sucking at her breasts the way that normally drives her wild. And it's like nothing. Nada. No reaction at all. But there's a bunch of shit at work with the Muramasa trial and he thinks, _well, okay. Fine. _He leaves it there.

A week later, she tells him not to touch her there. She's tired. Her breasts are red and sore. She thinks she's getting her menses; it's just a week early, not so odd at all. And there _is _the trial and it _isn't _so odd but Ichigo has always paid a freakish amount of attention to his girl. Instinctively, his touch becomes clinical. He is Ichigo the Internist. Rukia pushes him away from.

She says, 'You're such a controlling _dick.'_ He is, but only about things like this and that really isn't the point. But Rukia has never let him treat her, has promised—maliciously stubborn and self-righteous, as only she knows how to be—that he never fucking will. She calls it a conflict of interest, and she's right about this, too. But Ichigo doesn't know how to not worry and even if she's right and it's nothing, he rather be worried than dumb, even if his wife is too stupid to see the difference.

It's probably just a cold from all the stress at work, but he tells her to go see Goat Chin, because even if she doesn't listen to him, she'll listen to his dad. She tells him to fuck off and go suck something hard. And maybe she _is_ getting her period. But it's been a year since her last physical so she already has an appointment, anyway. She's good about these things.

And here they are. Rukia had her first chemo treatment a week before. She's nauseous for days, weak-limbed and moody in that way Ichigo recognizes from before. But she had to pass off the Muramasa trial to Renji and Ichigo knows she's pissed beyond words, even if she hasn't said anything.

They came in yesterday for her second round. But when they get to the hospital, she's running a fever. The doctor cancels the treatment, decides to keep her for observation. They have to be careful; this isn't their first time. And then Rukia springs it on them.

It's not that he doesn't agree. It's always been an option, more so when they discovered this second lump. She doesn't ask him about it, and he's her husband but really, it's her body and what would he say?

'Sorry, midget. I like your boobs where they are. Sorry if they're killing you. Take the poison. Maybe it'll work.'

Yeah. No.

It's not a matter of living without her. He doesn't even think about it. If it comes down to it, he just _won't._ Years and years and years before, Byakuya lost Rukia's sister and somehow he moved on. But Byakuya's relationship with Rangiku-san is strange, and Rukia says that it's different than what he had with her sister. 'Better,' she whispers, as if she is admitting a taboo.

Regardless of the dysfunction that may have existed in Byakuya's relationship with his first wife, he watched her die and that sort of thing can change your perception of an entire relationship. The petty shit ceases to count. The big shit ceases to count. Hisana _died_.

What else can matter, but that?

But every day, Byakuya woke up. Breathed out, in. Ichigo knows things like this don't stop hurting, but Byakuya falls in love. The important part: _he moves on._

Ichigo wouldn't do the same.

Ichigo doesn't think he has the greatest love of all. It's not some shiny plateau that no one in the world can ever hope to touch. But it's something and he _knows _it. And that's the thing about almost losing someone. Thirteen years ago, they didn't have rings, hadn't even labeled what they were. He realizes it while trying to explain, justify taking off for Boston in the middle of December, schoolwork be damned. Because he hadn't heard from her in _months_ and when he finally did, when she told him, 'I'm not doing okay,' he stopped caring about everyone else. His life focused onto a single point—on _Rukia_. He took a leave of absence, flunked two classes regardless. They didn't need labels or rings. Even then, she was _everything_. The most important person in his world.

Nothing has changed. Without her, there's no _moving on_. He's going to get her. Anyway he can.

"Anything interesting come up?"

Ichigo can barely remember what they're talking about.

"Where?"

"_Work_, moron. What are you doing up there?"

"I'm _thinking._"

She snorts. "Don't hurt yourself, princess."

He sighs, pulling her closer to him, his chin on her head. "Sometimes," he says, "I don't know _why _I married you."

"I asked. You swooned."

"I did _not _swoon."

"Of course you didn't." She turns to look at him, grinning. "I still _asked."_

"Only because you can't wait for things to follow the natural order of the universe."

He thinks he's too old for blushing, but that doesn't stop the heat in his cheeks. Rukia's grin grows.

Ichigo doesn't have any good thoughts about Rukia's proposal. They're twenty-four and she's on a single knee at Keigo's Christmas Eve bash. He's so embarrassed he feels sick with it—his supposed 'swoon.' All he can think of is the incident a few weeks before, when she was digging through his top drawer—looking for a shirt, she said. And he totally shouldn't have believed her, because _obviously_ she'd seen the ring and _obviously_ she was just being vindictive, because she just couldn't wait for him to propose.

But Rukia's still on her knee, grinning at him like she can see his every thought. Suddenly Ichigo's so angry he thinks he might have a _stroke._ He drags her away from their friends and out of the house. It's snowing and it's cold but it doesn't matter, because she's an inconsiderate bitchand she knows it, and it doesn't need to be warm for him to shout.

He tells her there's no way he's ever gonna marry her _now_, and they argue for twenty minutes before they go in for their coats. They're going home for the ring because it isn't like he carries it around, and even if he says he's never going to marry her, he's full of shit and she knows it. When he looks at her, her cheeks are pink from the cold, her eyes happy and blue, and he wants to kiss her until there's nothing else.

Of coursehe's going to marry her. He doesn't want anyone else.

They should have been married years and years before. After high school, like some ridiculous sweethearts, even though everyone would have probably thought it was because he got her knocked up.

If they'd married then, she couldn't have run away to America—'living the dream' or _whatever_ she wants to call it—instead of staying around so he didn't spend four and a half miserable years with her on the other side of the fucking world. He doesn't think that much would have changed, but at least he'd have legal ownership over her ass; maybe an owner's manual, he jokes. She kicks him. Of course.

Inside, Chad clasps him on the shoulder. Mizuiro wishes him luck and Keigo cries at the loss of Kuchiki-chan—not that he ever had a shot. Ishida is already talking dresses with Rukia, and Ichigo calls him a big gay pony, just because he feels like starting something. He's ignored. Of-fucking-course.

Inoue's crying loudly in a corner. Ichigo's willing to blame it on the booze because he doesn't like the alternatives, but Tatsuki looks like she wants to punch him in the face—like this is _his _fault. And, yes. It's time to go.

When they get home, he gives his girl a ring that she's already seen. She says she doesn't like it, but she puts it on and they have loud, messy sex until early Christmas morning. It could almost be a good memory, if she didn't call her brother while he was showing the next morning. Within the hour, Ichigo received a text message from Kuchiki Byakuya himself, welcoming him to the family and explaining that Ichigo needn't worry about not asking permission to marry Rukia, as she'd asked for _his _hand, after all, and it wasn't like his father would mind Rukia 'taking him off his hands.'

He hates them. He does. But he reminds himself that it doesn't matter if she asked for his 'hand,' or whatever. She's Kurosaki Rukia. This is what counts.

Ichigo leans forward, kissing her cheek. She turns into him and suddenly her lips are on his, light and warm. When he pulls away, his nose brushes hers, her breath warm against his skin.

He says, "You are my least and most favorite person in the world."

He's close enough to see the pink on her cheeks, thinks that they can't possibly be normal, if backhanded compliments are counted as affection. He says, "I love you."

She rolls her eyes. "Don't get carried away."

"'Course not."

She suddenly launches into a monologue of what she's been up to since he left for his half shift. She had breakfast with Ishida and Karin called from Portugal; the team is kicking ass, of course. Renji dropped off affidavits from the trial she's missing, and even though Ichigo kind of wants to punch him—for keeping her mind on work—he's happy the stupid pineapple kept her company while he was at work.

There's something about Yuzu and her punk of a husband, their three girls and Goat Chin—_of course _Goat Chin—and the usual messages from her brother and his weird-as-shit wife; they'll be in Karakura before her surgery, next week.

Rukia's been in the same room since yesterday morning and still her day seems fuller than his. He tells her bits about his time in the emergency room; the idiot with the nail gun, and the regular slew of kids: a sprained knee and tendonitis on the soccer field, a broken elbow, and the four-year-old with the recently discovered allergy to honey. Ichigo doesn't mind. He likes kids.

"Helluva lot easier to deal with than adults," he tells her. Kids listen. Even when they cry, they're suitably impressed by the 'doctor stuff' to shut the hell up.

She usually asks a lot of questions. Rukia likes kids, too—probably because she's a big one herself. Instead, she is silent. Ichigo is about to speak once more when she tells him, "Inoue came by."

It stops him, of course. Inoue and Rukia haven't talked—_really _talked—in years. It's weird that he thought of the break in their relationship—Rukia's proposal—the very same day that she would bring Inoue up, and realizes that Rukia wouldn't have brought the proposal up at all if she wasn't looking for a way to bring up Inoue.

Inoue's only been back in Karakura for the past couple of weeks. She moved to Sendai a couple of years ago, got married herself. She hadn't kept in contact with anyone except Tatsuki, really, until she returned a few weeks before.

She still looks exactly the same, and it's nostalgic like old pictures and the cartoons he used to watch on TV. The first time he sees her is at the grocery mart, before he knows she's returned. She's talking quietly with a blonde-haired little girl, pretty as a picture. He mentions it in passing to Ishida, who gives him the whole story over lunch. He heard it from Chad who got it from Keigo, because the lot of them gossip like a bunch of fucking girls.

Apparently, her bastard of a husband couldn't keep a job, and liked to slap her around when she came home from work. Ichigo kind of wants to take a trip up to Sendai just to lay it on his ass. From the look on his cousin's face, he'd take the trip with him. Ishida's always had it bad for Inoue and she's never noticed. Not that it would stop him from defending her honor. That's how they get down.

Inoue's with the abusive bastard for six years before she finally decides to leave. She's staying with Tatsuki until she can get back on her feet. The little girl is Chie. She's five years old.

He and Inoue have their first conversation in nine years in the emergency room. Chie bumps her head at the playground and Ichigo's the attending. It's awkward as all hell, but Ichigo already knows the story. He feels bad. Inoue is his friend.

Rukia makes him invite her over for dinner. Neither of them cook, but if Rukia has an ulterior motive, Ichigo never figures it out. Inoue politely declines their invitation until things settle in her life. Of course, now things are not settled in _their _lives, and Ichigo had completely forgotten about her, really.

Rukia says, "She came to see how I was."

There's that same agitation from earlier, and it feels like they're at the tip of something, waiting for the fall. Slowly, he says, "That was nice of her."

Rukia huffs. "Of course it was. She brought her kid. They made a card."

She points to a colorful piece of construction paper on the side table. She's hardly been here for a day but the space is already full, well-wishes from the family and friends and an expensive-looking vase of pink roses from her brother. If she hadn't mentioned Inoue, he'd have assumed it was from Yuuka, or one of Yuzu's other girls.

Again, he says, "That was nice."

She pinches his thigh, hard. "Try a little harder, asshole."

"What do you want me to _say?_"

She shrugs. "She asked for a little advice."

"About the husband?"

"It's a mess." She pauses. Then: "She's pregnant."

"Well, shit."

She sighs, her shoulders sagging as she seems to fall into herself.

He says, "Hey."

"I used to be so jealous of her."

He doesn't get it and she has yet to say anything else. He shifts, supporting her body against his right arm instead of his chest. She isn't looking at him and he hates it, hates that something so stupid and old can still do this to them. "Rukia—"

"She loved you," she says.

This isn't exactly news. Well, it _was, _when Ishida told him, sometime during their first year at university. They go on a date, once. Ichigo didn't ask for another and Inoue never brought it up. He'd thought that was the end of it. Except, of course, it _wasn't_.

Rukia's never told him what happened between she and Inoue and Ichigo's never asked. But they haven't spoken since Rukia's proposal, and really, that's telling enough.

He can feel the space between them. He wants to pull her closer, but it wouldn't change a thing. Inoue loved him—so fucking what? He asks her, "Why does that matter?"

"It _does_."

"Should I bring up the years Renji spent sniffing after you, doing everything in his power to get you guys back to the place where you were—"

"Oh God, Ichigo, shut _up_. I'm not talking about Renji. I'm talking about Inoue. She _loved_ you. She was so sure she could make you happy, if only you would take a chance with her."

"_You _make me happy. I took that chance with _you._"

"I know," she says.

He frowns. "Then what—"

"Rangiku always says, 'drive it like you stole it,' and I've always believed her—especially about this. That I was never going to stop loving you or being with you or let anything take this away. Because I could just as easily _not _have you. I could be Inoue. You could be with someone else."

Bad analogies aside, Ichigo gets it. He does.

He cups her jaw with his left hand, tilting her face up to his. "I'll never be with someone else."

Her eyes fill with tears. "I wanted to give you _everything_," she says to him. "I never wanted you to think—"

And suddenly Ichigo knows what this is. A double mastectomy is a viable option for any breast cancer patient. But ovarian cancer killed her sister, and this isn't Rukia's first time. Chemo is still an option, except it's _not. _

They don't need this to come back.

Yesterday, when she told him, she said, 'Look on the bright side. No more periods. I get new boobs. I'll let you pick them and everything.'

It's meant to make them both feel better. And at the time, he thinks, it does. He likes her boobs but he'll be happy to pick her new ones, even if immediate reconstruction means she'll have a longer recovery. An oophorectomy means she'll never suffer the same fate as her sister, makes the options limited for them one day having a family of their own.

And _of course_ she would feel this way after Inoue visited, together with her beautiful grey-eyed little girl and a baby in her womb. Inoue loved him. Ichigo loved kids. That little girl, Rukia thinks—that little girl could be _his._

He groans, his eyes squeezing shut. "You're such an idiot," he says.

She pushes at him, but the effort is weak and she falls against him instead. She's still crying: clear, wet tears that make her eyes sparkle like sapphires against her face. He kisses her cheeks, her skin wet beneath his lips.

She's so fucking _dumb._

She works out. She eats well. And finally, she says it. She says, "It isn't _fair._"

This is his girl, self-sacrificing to a fault. She'd give everything to him, _for _him. She's given him herself and she's perfect—so fucking perfect. But Rukia has never been able to see herself, can't understand what she means to him.

He's never wanted Inoue. He's never wanted anyone, but _her._

"This," he says to her. He pulls her close to him, careful of the line in her arm. He kisses her cheeks and her nose and her lips. He says, "I want _this_ forever."

She says, "Ichigo—"

"You _promised_ me." He hears her breath hitch, and when she closes her eyes, tears continuing to fall. He presses her forehead to his, his eyes closed, as well. "I'm so scared," he says.

"Don't be scared." She places her hands on his cheeks. She kisses him, he moans.

When he opens his eyes, she's looking at him.

"I don't want you to be scared," she whispers. "I'm doing this so we don't have to be, not ever."

"But I _am_," he tells her. "If it could—"

"Shut _up._"

Again, she kisses him. It's slow and long, and he can almost imagine that they're at home; they've just had dinner and she's in one of his shirts. She doesn't have cancer and he isn't afraid she might not be here next year. They aren't talking about Inoue. Yuzu is still married to a punk but his nieces are beautiful; Karin plays soccer like a star. There's Goat Chin and stupid Ishida; Rukia's brother and his wife and the bright-eyed little boy who's growing up to be every bit as pompous as his pop. There's her work and his work and the days pass too fast; there's never enough time to make love.

Her hands fall away from his face. She looks at him, her eyes still full of tears.

"All I want is you," he says. She burrows her face in his chest. His hand rests against her spine, his heart in his throat.

He imagines her as she'll never be: heavy and swollen with his child. He's always wanted that life. It's not to be, and it _hurts_.

But how can he miss what he's never had? It's selfish and dumb and she's so much more important.

He wants her so much more.

He presses his face against the scarf on her head, his breath slow and long as he takes her in. He wants to hide himself beneath her skin, to save her from all the things threatening to tear them apart.

Her head turns, her cheek against his sternum, her fingers on his heart. She says to him, "We'll be okay."

He's loved her forever. He wants her forever more.

He says, "We'll be _everything," _and she laughs. He can feel each puff of breath, warming his skin through his shirt. His palm presses to hers in a kiss, right over his heart.

* * *

**notes:** I have no personal experience with breast cancer other than stories I've been told, and everything else I've read on the web. My information may not be one hundred percent accurate, but _please_ keep in mind that everyone has a different experience. Rukia could just as easily have AIDS, MS, or some other life-threatening illness. This story _isn't _about breast cancer. It isn't about life or death. It's about a man who loves a girl and would give everything to save her but _can't, _because that isn't how these things work. This story is about a single moment in a hospital room, in the aftermath of Rukia making an extreme decision that will probably save her life. As much as Ichigo is a part of Rukia's experience, he's a voyeur to it, as well—a terribly painful place to be.

I'm not terribly happy with this, but this story begged to be written and wouldn't leave me alone until I did. I feel compelled to share.

Comments and criticisms, as always, are welcome.


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